Hey everyone,
First time poster - A little background: My wife and I have basically been sort of pursuing FI unknowingly for a little while. I stumbled onto this site and we are going to make a run at it. I am 32, shes 34.
Income: Ignoring bonus time (~20% of my pay, none of hers), 150k me, 70k her. About 10k take home right now each month.
Debt: The house (283k at 3.5%) and some student loans (15k at 2.03%) thats it.
Savings:
170k in my 401k, maxed getting 6% match
45k in a cash balance (rolls into an IRA upon quitting / retiring), 5% added from work
12k invested in my HSA (left 5k in cash just incase), maxed contribution
11k my roth
5k wife roth
10k checking
10k savings
My wife is a professor and contributes 6% of her pay into the pension. Which is awesome if it pans out.
Options going forward:
We have child care expenses for the 2 kids, so outside of that we have roughly 4k every month saveable/investible income.
My wife has a 401k/403b available to her but does not use it right now.
Bonus time I typically pay taxes, set money aside for home modifications, and put about half into savings / investments.
Option 1 is for her to max out her 401k/403b, save some to backdoor the roths, and either (a) invest the remainder of the extra money or (b) mortgage paydown with the extras. The nice thing about this is that it will reduce our considerable taxes right now...but it 'traps' that cash.
Option 2 is to invest all of the cash, roughly 3k a month into vanguard funds and 1k to save / backdoor into the roths. Deal with the tax hits but have liquidity sooner in a form we can use more readily.
Option 3 is to pay down the house quickly while continuing to max my retirement accounts. Once the house is down, then throw 5-6k into vanguard funds.
Our jobs are very secure, engineering professor and licensed nuclear operator. The big perk to paying off the house first is that I would be able to maybe get of rotating shift work sooner and take something lower paying while maintaining the same standards of living.
I can post a detailed budget if needed, but we have trimmed it as much as we are willing / can. All expenses childcare, xmas, pocket money, vacation fun, and bills take roughly 6k right now (including mortgage).
Thanks for the help everyone!